


Understanding

by SubtextEquals



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubtextEquals/pseuds/SubtextEquals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius contemplates his life while he drinks. Remus is there to pick up the pieces.</p>
<p>Set during Order of the Phoenix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Winter Wolfstar Wank. The prompt was "Post-Azkaban."

Even now, after all this time, Sirius’s fingers twitched for a cigarette. After fourteen years he thought that the cravings would pass. He’d certainly never noticed them in Azkaban. But since then they came back to him, the way most other things had. And he felt that craving acutely whenever he drank. At least alcohol was easier to procure. It didn’t take much to bribe Mundungus to bring him some firewhisky.

Remus didn’t approve of course, but he didn’t have much say in the matter. He was his lover not his mother (not that Sirius had ever listened to his mother either). And in any case he didn’t understand.

Or maybe he did, to a certain extent anyway. He had been alone too. He’d lost everything and everyone he loved as well. They’d both been betrayed. They’d both lost each other and James and Lily, and for a time they’d even lost Harry as well.

The difference was that Remus had his memories. He had, if not happiness, than at least an absence of despair at times. He’d been able to go about his life while Sirius languished. A part of him resented his lover for it. And for that a part of him hated himself even more.

He didn’t understand though, perhaps he never would, why Remus had been so quick to believe that Sirius had been the spy. But then what choice did he have? Peter had planned it too well and Sirius had walked right into the trap and in so doing he lost his best friends, all of them, and his life. A life he had yet to regain, trapped here in his ancestral home.

Sirius had escaped from this place when he was 16. He was young and stupid, full of life but not innocence after what he’d almost done to Snape. But looking back the only regret Sirius had concerning running away was that he didn’t do it sooner. How different would it have been if at 11 he had decided to take his life into his own hands? But then at 11 no one would have let him stay with James. They would have forced him to return just as he was forced to return now.

“Well Mum, congratulations. You finally got me.” He took a swig straight from the bottle. “Aren’t you proud of your son?”

The only one to escape Azkaban unaided.

A member of the Order of the Phoenix.

The first Black to be sorted into Gryffindor.

The pureblood who’d befriended mudbloods.

The blood traitor who consorted with a werewolf.

The man who was responsible for the murders of his best friends and had witnessed the massacre of still more. A massacre that could have been prevented if he hadn’t run blindly after a man he used to call a friend.

Sirius didn’t notice the footsteps behind him until Remus pulled the bottle out of his hands. It was only then that he realized that there were several empty bottles set out before him.

Remus sighed and set aside the firewhisky. “Sirius…”

“I know.” Sirius reached for the werewolf’s hands. His vision was swimming out of focus and he lurched as he moved but Remus caught him, first by the hands and then the arm.

“You should lie down.” Remus said gently, saving his lecture for later, no doubt.

“I love you.” Sirius stammered. “I’m nothing but a fuck up but I love you.”

“You’re not a fuck up.” Remus stood and pulled Sirius to his feet, letting the man wrap his arms around him. “And I love you.” He said.

Sirius closed his eyes. He waited for the world to still.

Maybe Remus understood after all.


End file.
